T-shirt designer who also has random thoughts about current events, art, philosophy, humor, fashion, celebrities, decor, and everything under the sun. Please bookmark this blog and come back often! If you're a designer or philosopher, ask about guest blogging.

Monday, September 19, 2016

Baskets of Deplorables is an inspired phrase, coined by Hillary Clinton to describe some of Donald Trump's supporters. It's evocative, funny and has a modern sound to it. Trump's supporters, and indeed Trump himself, took the phrase and appropriated it to a certain extent. At one point Trump made a grand entrance to a rally, with the words Les Deplorables (in Les Miserables type font) emblazoned behind him.
There are also some inspired t-shirts out there, and as much as I am not a supporter of Donald Trump, I think some of the Deplorables shirts are pretty amusing. Here are just a few of the hundreds available on Amazon.com:

Should you be so inclined, you could do a lot worse than to buy a few of these. They'll be useful now, thru the election, and after the election. They will be a great memento of the debacle that is Election 2016. I don't know about Amazon's return policy on t-shirts, but it's probably pretty....ahem...liberal.

Friday, August 26, 2016

Ah, the end of summer, the lull before the holidays...it's quiet, there's nothing on the immediate horizon...wait a minute! There, on the horizon! A ship! A pirate ship! With a Jolly Roger!
ARRRGGGHHH! It's INTERNATIONAL TALK LIKE A PIRATE DAY, just a few weeks away! Time to brush up on your piratespeak, get yourself a pirate t-shirt and be prepared for anything!

It's an awesome book, well researched and full of colorful history as well as every pirate word, phrase, utterance, oath, pirate curse, insult, cuss word and nautical term your little black heart could desire. Everything from "I'm a lewdly yapping cur..." to "souse me for a gurnet" is chronicled, along with source information. It's a great read, or I'm a salted codfish!

Wednesday, August 17, 2016

I've been thinking for some time now that this election cycle is one for the history books. No one has ever run a Presidential campaign the way Donald Trump has. He started with no staff, no plan, no campaign office. He treated the entire campaign like a reality show, and the mainstream media was his willing aide, covering his every utterance and gesture. He had no need to spend money or acquire staff, since he was getting free air time virtually 24.7. And he understood that to be outrageous was to be given free TV time. There was madness, there was method and there was luck. Luck that the American populace has become so cynical that we expect nothing but lies from politicians.
All this is going to backfire, bigtime, for the GOP. Donald Trump doesn't care, he will land on his feet, because what he wants is attention, and he will get it from now until forever. He is the 21st century PT Barnum, and this country is full of suckers. He knows that. I'm not going to call it genius, I'm going to call it experience, because his years doing "The Apprentice" was actually HIS apprenticeship.
With all that in mind, anti-Trump tshirts are going to be something you want to tuck away and give your grandkids, as proof that this election really happened. Trust me, this will be studied from now until doomsday. We can only hope it is studied with the end goal of "NEVER AGAIN".
Love TRUMPS Hate TshirtTreasonous Trump for Prison T-shirtDUMP TRUMP TshirtLosing to a Girl Anti Trump Tshirt Humor

Friday, April 15, 2016

Mother's Day is coming up again! Mother's Day 2016 will be celebrated on Sunday, May 8. I used to work in a steakhouse, and Mother's Day was one of the busiest days of the year. We always put on extra staff, and ordered extra steak, and sure enough the moms and their families would flood in!

And the grandmas too. Oh, the lovely grandmas! I remember pink lace and corsages and smiling faces. Mothers sometimes looked stressed because, after all, even on Mother's Day you don't get to stop changing diapers, wiping mouths, teaching table manners, and racing arounda after unruly 2-year olds. But grandmas...they're just happy to be around the kids and grandkids.

But back to mom. I come from a big family, so it was always a challenge to buy something unique. One year I bought her some cheap perfume (I was 8, what did I know?) because it had a picture of a horse on the label and I knew she liked horses. She never wore it, but did display the bottle prominently on her dresser for a few weeks. Moms are like that. (I shudder today to think what a cologne that had a horse on the label might smell like!)

I'm lucky that my mom is still around and healthy. I know a lot of people who've lost their moms way too soon. So if your mom, grandma, mother in law, or great grandma is around, I have one word of advice: spoil. Spoil her rotten! She deserves it!

Here are some fun, funny, cute and weird (circus??) tshirts that would make great gifts for your mom. You can click on any of the titles to be taken directly to a page where you can purchase. But hurry, remember that with online sales it can take from several days to a couple of weeks to receive your item.

Tuesday, April 12, 2016

It's the height of the primary season, and all the remaining candidates (as of this writing, there are only Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders on the Democratic side, and Donald Trump, John Kasich, and Ted Cruz for the Republicans) are working hard to secure delegates to the summer conventions. And t-shirt designers are in hog heaven! One particularly fun event occurred when Bernie Sanders was making a rousing speech in Portland Oregon and a little bird landed on the podium.

These kinds of truly spontaneous moments are so rare in politics, so unique amidst the dull rhetoric and sound bytes of the season, that they become iconic. The fact that the bird happened to alight in Portland of all places gave the incident a feeling of serendipity at the least, or providence at the most. Who doesn't recall the Portlandia tv show, and its "put a bird on it" episode?

While the Portlandia bird appears to be a Northern Cardinal (even though there are no Northern Cardinals in Oregon), the little fella that made an appearance on Sanders' podium was a house finch. Never mind, it's the thought that counts, right?

Enter the t-shirt designers! So many fun, cute and silly tshirts out there! We've collected our five favs. You can click the titles of any of them to go and buy them. Fun to wear all summer, and a great commemorative item to save for the future.

Saturday, April 2, 2016

Today, April 2, is World Autism Awareness Day. And April is National Autism Awareness Month in the United States. The purpose of National Autism Awareness Month is to highlight the issue of autism and to "promote autism awareness, inclusion and self-determination for all, and assure that each person with ASD is provided the opportunity to achieve the highest possible quality of life." That is according to the Autism Society.

Years ago, a number of prominent psychologists put forth a theory that autism was caused by "Refrigerator Mother Syndrome", which is exactly as it sounds: a completely ludicrous and now utterly discredited theory that blamed autism on parents (especially mothers) who lacked maternal warmth. Bruno Bettelheim hypothesized that improper breastfeeding and other cold and distant behaviors that deprived the children of proper bonding. How awful must it have been to be a mother (or father) of an autistic child and to be told that your subconscious rejection was responsible! And this theory persisted until as recently as the 1960s.

Today, thank goodness, we know better. And science is learning more and more about the true nature of autism. We know that there is probably not one particular factor or cause, but rather a variety of genetic factors. We know that vaccines are probably not a factor. We know that only a lot more research will lead us to discover the true causes and possible cures for this ailment.

Monday, March 14, 2016

Donald Trump is nothing if not a polarizing figure. Some say he has given a voice to the racist bigots in America. He has done that. Some say he condones violence. He does do that. But he also unleashes humor in those, especially, who oppose his rhetoric.

Wednesday, March 2, 2016

By now you've probably seen the brilliant segment by John Oliver, skewering Donald Trump merely by telling the truth about him. But in case you haven't seen it, here it is.

Donald Drumpf. Doesn't have quite the same ring of wealth and power as Donald Trump, does it? I mean, President Drumpf? Not bloody likely. Drumpf Towers? Nah. Drumpf Casino? I wouldn't spend a dime there. So the Donald can thank his lucky stars that his grandfather, Frederick Drumpf, started calling himself Frederick Trump. It's not known, according to the website Bustle, "... if he ever changed his name officially. Some have speculated that he didn’t want to be known as “Drumpf” because of prevailing prejudice against Germans (which would heighten, of course, during World War I)."

Still, the name Drumpf has spawned all kinds of spoofs and memes on the Internet, including more than one hashtag on Twitter. #makedonalddrumpfagain trended for days, and there's a website where you can get a "drumpfinator" extension for Chrome that changes the word Trump to the word Drumpf on every page you view.

Thursday, February 18, 2016

Most people know that the Chicago River gets dyed green for St. Patrick's Day, and 2016 will be no exception! BUT! If you wait until March 17 you'll miss it!! That's because the Chicago St Patrick's Day parade and river dyeing always take place on the Saturday BEFORE St. Patrick's Day. This year it will be on March 12. The dyeing will take place around 9:00 a.m. on parade Saturday, according to the website Chicago's St Pat's Parade. The site says that the formula for the dye is a "closely guarded secret" but that it is safe for the environment.

That website also says that the Chicago Journeymen Plumbers group does the dying, as it has for the last 50+ years. What's funny is that the dye that is used appears orange when first added to the water, and then it miraculously turns "Irish green" within minutes. About 40 pounds of vegetable dye are used, and the process takes about 5 hours.

Other things that "go green" for St. Patrick's Day? The Leaning Tower of Pisa, the fountain at the White House ( a new tradition, started by the Obamas, to remind them of Chicago), the downtown canal in Indianapolis, and all the fountains in Savannah GA.

According to Betty, the best way to do it is to use a very light colored beer (pale ale, pilsner). Use liquid green food coloring (the kind that comes in little squeeze bottles). Squeeze some (4-6 drops) food coloring in the bottom of your pint glass, and then slowly pour the beer in to the food coloring. This way, you don't have to stir the beer, which could make it go flat. Oh, and one more thing: if you think adding blue food coloring to yellow beer will give you green beer, experts say you're wrong! You'll end up with turquoise, and nobody wants to drink turquoise beer!